Layout:
Home > Another rewards credit card to work on, coworker issues and a big tree takedown

Another rewards credit card to work on, coworker issues and a big tree takedown

June 4th, 2014 at 11:54 am

OK, let's face it...I'm a flipper. No, I don't flip houses but I sure to love to "flip" credit cards to earn those lucrative upfront rewards.

Since 2013, I've gone through 19 rewards credit cards. Currently, I have 7 cards:

1 & 2: USAA VIsa and Amex Cash Card are my oldest cards, and so while they both have lousy rewards, I'll hold onto them to maintain a decent credit score.

3 & 4: I'm partial to my Cap One Visa Platinum and BankAmericard Cash rewards card because with the former, I got to personalize the card with my own design (a peacock feather closeup) and with the latter, a small portion of every dollar I spend benefits the World Wildlife Foundation.

5. Citi Forward

6. Discover

7.BankAmericard CashRewards

I finished the spend requirement on my Barclaycard MasterCard and should get the $100 bonus soon.

Then it occurred to me that since I am having a large tree taken down in my yard in a few weeks, to the tune of $1,500, this would be the perfect time to get another bonus reward card to defray a part of that cost.

So I applied for and was approved for another "spend $500 in 90 days, get $100 back" card...the NFL card where you get to pick your team logo for the card. I'm not a big sports fan, but I'm running out of card offers, so what the hey.

As for the tree, it's a 65-foot-high ailanthus tree. This is considered a "junk" tree and it was the tree featured in the story, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, for its tenacious ability to grow right up through a concrete sidewalk.

This one is a little too close to my house for comfort, maybe about 25 feet, and in Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, several large branches were shorn off and carried by the wind to land even closer to my house.....like 10 feet away. I've also noticed some kind of insect damage that extends from the base of the trunk up about 10 feet. This alone is reason enough for concern, I think. This is a humongous tree. At the base, it looks to be 3 feet in diameter.

I had been pricing getting this tree down last summer, but while the estimates I got then were in the $1200 to $1400 range, it didn't include taking the wood away, and I've got so many old tree stumps, logs, branches and other debris in the woodsy periphery of my property, that I just want this wood taken away. Leaving logs here would attract ants and termites. So $1500 with removal seems in the same range.

And when I researched the one guy I was thinking of hiring last year, I discovered online that he had come here from Pennsylvania with a long string of customer complaints about taking people's money and not finishing the job. Then I think I was having money issues as I wasn't working steadily, so nothing ever got done.

The tree is on the shared property line with my neighbors. If my neighbors weren't senior citizens, I would ask them to go halfies with me on the cost, since the tree is very close to their power lines coming in off the street. Or at least to chip in something. But I know they're on a fixed income and I don't have the heart to ask. They have given their permission to have the tree crew drive their truck across their yard to access the tree, cus on my side there's a whole lot more overgrowth and it's just tighter quarters. So at least that's something.

I've asked them to do the work on a Saturday so I can watch and take pix. I've had trees taken down before, and there are many different ways I've seen it done, but it's amazing how well they can control the drop of tree limbs so they don't crash down in the wrong place.

I had to have a talk with my boss about a coworker I sit next to who is difficult to work with. She gets very personal and sent me a nasty email last week and she's very emotionally unstable, coming in crying and sniffling one day and then all chirpy happy the next so I can't concentrate on my work. I had a lightbulb moment yesterday about it and I really think she's schizophrenic, meaning she has extreme highs and lows. (This used to be called manic depressive.) It fits her to a tee.

My boss (a woman) was very receptive to what I had to say. I'm not the first to complain about her. She actually decided to tell the other woman she can work at home 2 days a week (she now works at home 1 day a week but takes extreme liberties by leaving work early using various excuses) and that i could work at home 1 day when she is in, so that we'd only have to work together 2 days a week!

You would think it would be easier to move someone's seat, but that's not really true where I work. I told my boss that while I appreciated the offer to work at home, the 2 of us should be able to work things out, and personally, I'm not sure that inability to get along with a coworker is a good reason to work at home. Our boss is incredibly understanding. She encouraged me to get together with the coworker to talk things out. Which I will do, but i think there's a risk of a big argument, but it needs to be done, becus every time she's made a sarcastic comment to me or sent her snotty emails, I've not responded at all, because i care about my reputation where i work and if i were to respond, there would a cat-fight which EVERYONE could hear. We work in cubes with very little privacy. I think things have gotten worse with the coworker because she interprets my non-reaction as not defending myself, and it's emboldened her to say whatever she likes.

My coworker once told me she found her job to be "incredibly boring," and she likes to dabble in my job, which I don't appreciate. As project manager, she's supposed to shepherd various writing projects, usually letters that I write, through the review/approval process. She's supposed to review the copy and is able to make SUGGESTIONS to me if she sees something amiss, but she acts like she has the final say, which she doesn't. She also can be very arrogant and makes a big stink if I don't take her edits. My boss has reiterated that as the writer, I make the call on anything related to the copy (punctuation, grammar, style etc). That's what they hired me for, after all.

The good news out of all of this is that my boss reiterated that my coworker's job is definitely done by year's end, while they want to make my job permanent. My boss said her boss is working on getting the funding for the position. (I do hope it's a decent salary, but guess I'll deal with that when the time comes.)

7 Responses to “Another rewards credit card to work on, coworker issues and a big tree takedown”

  1. just a thought Says:
    1401880298

    I think it's called bipolar disorder, not schizophrenia.

  2. Retired To Win Says:
    1401881282

    Great job on the cashback cards!

    Have you got a go-to website or some other reference source that gives you a list of available credit cards bonus offers? It would be great to know what that is! Smile

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    1401884407

    I was thinking bipolar as well. I'm glad you had a positive response with your boss and know what they are thinking about in regards to who stays and who goes at year's end.

  4. ironicone Says:
    1401887997

    Since the tree is close to the power line, have you tried contacting the power company? Sometimes, they will have funds to either a)remove it or b) trim it back reducing your overall bill.

  5. CB in the City Says:
    1401888480

    Yep, bipolar.

    I had an ailanthus tree in my yard when I was a teenager -- it was my parents' yard, of course. It was also huge. I remember being quite impressed when I learned what it was because I loved "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." We were in a country setting with a big yard, so the tree didn't pose any threat to the house, though I remember my mother worrying that limbs might come down!

  6. Dido Says:
    1402487580

    Yes, her behavior is bipolar, not schizophrenic. And glad to hear that it looks like your job will become permanent while hers will end.

    How have all the credit cards affected your credit rating?

  7. PatientSaver Says:
    1402530834

    Yes, thank you for the correction on the bipolar...

    I usually check out creditcards.com, but also, you can just do a search for "rewards credit cards" and find plenty of sites that cover these cards.

    Honestly, my credit score fluctuates only slightly. There may be a dip or two, but it hasn't been anything major and it seems to come return to normal in a fairly short time. The dips are never enough to kick me out of the excellent range.

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]